R&D was the genesis that launched Northern Electric from the sleepy Canadian branch plant to a publicly traded company with a market cap of more than $300B, $30B in sales, and 100,000 employees worldwide. The lessons learned from my Nortel experience... “Innovate or Die“

By John F. Tyson

8 - Redesigning Roles

"Continuous innovation requires an adaptive organization that can execute on its promise, recognize where the market will be, be willing to obsolete and cannibalize its own products, and leave catch-up to its competitors. The gap between product innovation and sustaining development is a cultural chasm. It’s the difference between “bet the business” and “protect market share. … Organizations must adapt or die and the same applies to innovation.”